11/24/06

Snapshots: Three feral dogs, each about 15 Kg, crossed the street, two coal gray, the other the color of fresh mud, with splashes of watery potholes mixed in. I was glad to have the wind at my back as I walked toward the orange-red sun slipping toward the horizon. Dust was kicked up in swirling dervishes, but going with the grain made walking easier. I walked the 5 Km or so to Permuni's only to find a private party going on. I didn't want to be near crowds, so I left, back to Northmead, to the Dauphin, the new restaurant incarnation housed where Shenai used to be. Here I sit in the middle of landlocked southern Africa, a days travel away from any ocean no matter what means of transport one uses, and I'm sitting in the kitschiest restaurant I've ever seen, with walls and ceiling decorated with fishnets, plastic fish, beach towels in bright, off-primary, tropical colors, hanging baskets holding no plants, advertisements for travel to Mauritius, a karaoke machine, and some of the best food in the New Lusaka.

Earlier this evening I ate four pieces of chicken that Aggie and Lisa had prepared earlier this week. I reheated them in a pot on the stove, adding water and the tomato sauces they made. To my surprise, I didn't burn it. In fact I heated it just right, and it was delicious. But I was alone, and I'm damn tired of being alone in this town, with no transport, little money, no communications, nosy guards, intrusive landlords, shitty television, interesting-but-unentertaining books, a guilty conscience for leaving Maggie so long, and a building worry that school is fast approaching. Oh and a lack of fruition on my PEPFAR projects, a sense of underappreciation with bright moments of wonderful clinical learning shining through, but not as often as I'd like.  

In short, I'm irritable, lonely, and ready to get home. (And in November retrospect, I had a bad attitude on this particular evening, didn't I?)

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Kanyama by daylight is an impressive visual, olfactory, and auditory feast of color, of markets, of garbage, or burning piles of plastic, tomatoes stacked on top of one another in delicious pyramids - 500 Kwacha for the small ones, and 1,000 for the larger. (They're 20,000 for 6, in plastic seal on a Styrofoam tray in Spar.)  Women sit, lining both sides of the road, their legs covered in colorful wraps with dark patterns, gold with black, dull brick red, white blouses. Scarves match the wrap and cover the head. A young man weaves through the pedestrian masses, a bouquet of about 50 perfectly rolled plastic bags of blue and green balanced on his head, fixed despite the bounce in his step. The rows of women sit, selling vegetables. One pops out a breast and offers it to her infant. The constant staccato of one-toot horns of minibuses queued to enter the crowded traffic of the Soweto bus stop sound. Piles of unmatched shoes, each two meters square and a half meter high, assorted by color, in blacks, browns, and white sneakers, are sorted by women.

Two thin men shove each other and a third tries to mediate. One appears inebriated. Twenty-five minutes later they are still in disagreement on the same corner. The City Market has defeated the City Council, expanding out from the order of the blue and white-rounded roofed stalls, westwardly proceeding, slats of wood making cabin-sized structures with gaps wide enough for an arm to pass between the boards. They look like a strong push would topple them, but they also appear fossilized, held up by grime and crowdedness of this Kanyama, the most densely populous township in Lusaka, 400,000 strong.

This is Mulilo's stronghold. Kabulamwanda is there, surrounded and engulfed by Soweto market. Women sell kasava and mpemba (white clay). Men hammer out blazers from destroyed car frames. The ground is a black moonscape of ash, with thin plastic shreds of carrying bags poking through as if broad grey leaves of grass in a ruined meadow. A lorry passes by loaded beyond capacity with gray bags of charcoal towering 6 or 7 meters high, and netted with coarse twine at the top. The rear tires are nearly flat, compressed by the weight of the load. Like an elephant on a slope, the truck seems to find its way gingerly over the tar road, slowly but surely.

Thursday we hit Rhapsody's again, Jeff, Mulilo, Amanda, Nicole, and I. Mulilo beat me at chess. I offered pawns in a queen's pawn opening, "Queen's Gambit Accepted," but I gambited too much. Three pawns down, I equalized somewhat by taking a knight, but Mulilo pushed a fatal c-pawn and I surrendered. It was awful. He's been sending me daily text messages since then, rubbing salt in. I had the misfortune of seeing Selenium-man (Howard) last night, and he knew of the loss from Mulilo's boasts at the gym that morning. I hope to get a redemptive chance before I go.

I sat in the sun for 30 minutes this afternoon, in between watching E! top 30 or so of the most surprising moments in entertainment, which included Rock Hudson (#20 or so), Magic Johnson (#10 or so), and Diana and OJ as #2 and #1, respectively. Diana died the night before I left for Cairo en route to Lusaka for the first time, in October, 1997. It was in the University Center at UCI with Satish, when I watched Magic's HIV announcement, and it was in the University Center at UAB fresh to Birmingham, and surrounded by rejoicing African-Americans, when I wondered my surprise at a not guilty verdict for OJ.

The Brown family lived a literal stone's throw from my ex-wife's place in Cali. The OJ era of my life is a good one to leave behind. Forget about Cowling, the dog and the white Blazer coming down Monarch Bay drive, after the cameras had been turned off. And forget the tragic Nunnikhovens.